In the eyes of the Orioles’ fiery Hall of Fame former manager, Weaver, the key to baseball was “pitching, defense, and three-run home runs.”

Consider those boxes fully checked, as the Baltimore batters left Comerica Park early and often in the three-game series, before leaving the Tigers’ home park with the first series win by a road team since mid-May.

Wednesday, it was Porcello’s turn to take the pounding, giving up a pair of fourth-inning blasts in 13-3 loss. Jose Valverde gave up another in the ninth.

“We just ran into, the last couple of days, uncharacteristic starts, where we didn’t get a lot out of our starters. That usually spells disaster,” manager Jim Leyland said. “When you get two starts from your starters, back-to-back, where they just weren’t successful starts for them, it usually spells two losses. That’s just the way it is.”

It is the most runs the Tigers allowed this season, and only the fourth time they yielded double digits. It matched their most lopsided loss of the season.

And it all stemmed back to the two home runs in the fourth — one which wasn’t so unexpected, and the other that was.

“Well, I think most starts you’re going to have those innings where you get into a little bit of trouble, and it’s kind of a defining inning, and you gotta rise to the occasion and get out of a jam, or whatever it may be, and tonight, it obviously wasn’t the case. I don’t know how many hits they got, but they got a bunch of hits that inning. I left a bunch of pitches up, but still had a chance to get out of there with only two runs. To let that opportunity slip away is pretty frustrating,” Porcello said.

“This game’s going to sit with me for a while. Put up five shutout innings, but to give up six in one inning — you can’t expect to have any success doing that.

“That one inning just really turned it into a blowout.”

The Orioles, who lead all of baseball with 97 home runs, scored 19 runs in the series, 13 on home run balls — six of them. Tigers pitchers have allowed the fewest home runs in the American League (51), 12 in two series against the Orioles.

After three scoreless innings, Porcello came unglued in the fourth, allowing six runs on seven hits.

Chris Davis, who added two homers to his MLB lead, hit No. 25 on the first pitch he saw in the fourth, putting the Orioles up 2-0.

Three batters later, Ryan Flaherty beat out a squibber down the third base line, and it all unraveled from there.

“I thought Rick lost his composure. Sinker-ballers are going to live with that kind of stuff, ground balls that find holes sometimes, miss-hit the ball a little bit — they get that type of hit once in a while. You just have to pitch above that. He was in a situation where he should have been able to do that, where they were in the order, but I think he just lost his composure momentarily, and it cost him,” Leyland said. “He lost his composure, and it bit him.”

Taylor Teagarden — who had just one hit on the season coming in — made it 5-0 with a three-run shot over the Tigers bullpen. Two of Teagarden’s three homers in two seasons with the Orioles are against Detroit.

“Tonight was on me. I gotta get out of that inning with only two runs. I can live with a home run to a guy that’s hit his share this year, but the No. 9 batter is a very favorable match-up for me, and I didn’t execute when I really needed to,” said Porcello, who disagreed that he’d lost composure. “You guys pretty much saw it. I gave up two long balls. I made a really bad pitch to Teagarden. That guy’s gotta be — I mean, I’ve got respect for him as a player, and at any given point, someone can get you — but I gotta make better pitches, and I’ve gotta make it tougher for him.

“Was probably one of the worst at-bats I’ve pitched this year, giving a cookie to him.”

The Orioles would add a sixth run on Manny Machado’s RBI single, sending 10 batters to the plate.

It was the most runs Porcello had allowed in any game since his first-inning debacle against the Angels on April 20, let alone any inning. He gave up nine runs on nine hits in two-thirds of an inning that afternoon, and had only given up 18 earned runs in nine starts since, posting a 4-1 record with a 2.84 ERA, and a sterling WHIP of 0.947.

After getting just one guy out in the span of seven batters in the fourth, Porcello would settle down and retire four straight after that, getting the Tigers through the fifth.

The only run Detroit scored with Porcello on the mound was in the bottom of the fourth, when Jhonny Peralta led off with a double and scored on Omar Infante’s RBI double. The Tigers added two more on Matt Tuiasosopo’s pinch-hit two-run double in the sixth.

The bullpen couldn’t keep it close enough for a late rally — not exactly a specialty of the Tigers, anyway — as Darin Downs and Evan Reed allowed three add-on runs in the seventh. Adam Jones’ squibber with the infield in plated the first run, then Davis doubled in another, and the third came in on a J.J. Hardy sacrifice fly.

Jose Valverde gave up two more tack-on runs in mop-up duty in the ninth, two on a two-run double by Jones, and two more on HR No. 26 for Davis.

“He just hadn’t pitched in three days, so it was an opportunity where we felt like he needed to pitch today, no matter what. So we put him out there. I think he threw one good split and a bunch of them that weren’t too good,” Leyland said. “It was obviously not a very good outing for him. You give him a little bit of a reprieve, because there’s not much adrenaline probably in that situation, but he definitely needed to pitch. It didn’t work out too good for him today.”

The last time the Tigers lost a home series was May 10-12, against Cleveland, going 4-0-1 in five series before this one.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.